9 thoughts on “The Reform of the Reform Fights Back”

A plurality of sincere, charitable voices is certainly welcome on an issue as important as this. Describing these new contributors as “sane” seems to suggest that you regard earlier, opposed contributions as being other than sane. Remember St Augustine’s teaching – In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.

I appreciate the scholarship that went into that exposition, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why one needs to prooftext Ratzinger against Ratzinger to come to a conclusion on this matter.

First, I disagree that the critique I cited refers to anything other than the whole-cloth, liturgy-by-committee approach that followed Vatican II instead of a more appropriate application of Sacrosanctum Concilium to the existing liturgical texts.

But furthermore, the difference between the rites, taken in their purest forms, is still manifest. There is nothing in the new that improves upon the old, and almost every effort to reform the new is an attempt to return to something closer to the older form.

Benedict did something necessary with SP, but he isn’t the first, last, and only say on liturgy in the modern Church. The Novus Ordo has existed for less than 2.5% of the Church’s history, and to supplant something that arguably encompasses something that spans the vast majority of the original 97% of that history with something obviously inferior in tone, style, and substance is arbitrary, capricious, and has been disastrous in the life of the faith. Just look at the statistics.

Steve, to show context and the actual nuance of thought of Ratzinger is not prooftexting. It is simply illustrate that his thought is complex and defies being used as a club, unless of course, one cherry-picks the quotes one likes and disregards those one doesn’t.

The trads (not you necessarily) quote Cardinal Ratzinger (not Pope Benedict) out of context from a preface to a book (not a magisterial document) and suggest it proves something, and then when as Pope he speaks magisterially on religious liberty (see, for example 26-27), we are told not to be ultramontanists–although right now it may not be useful to be bagging on Pope Benedict, when there is Pope Francis for them to worry about.

Yes! Two wonderful articles. Thank you for sharing these with us. And really, when reading books like the History of the Mass, one can see that the Church, the Liturgy is always in a state of reform and renewal.